Lotte Confectionery Eliminates Plastic Containers from All Biscuit Products

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-yoon] Lotte Confectionery announced on the 21st that it has completely eliminated plastic packaging containers previously used for biscuits.

With the recent halt in production of mini vegetable crackers and mini chocolate chip cookies that contained plastic cushioning materials, all plastic containers used in the packaging of Lotte Confectionery’s biscuit products, totaling around 80 SKUs, have been removed.

Since 2020, Lotte Confectionery has been using eco-friendly inks such as ethanol-based inks instead of organic solvents for various products including biscuits, chocolates, and candies. Alongside this, the company has reduced the number of print colors and simplified packaging designs. For 10 types of gum products including Juicy Fresh, the printing ink density on gum paper was reduced by about half to decrease ink usage.

Additionally, various eco-friendly packaging changes are underway. Since last year, the application of ‘Cacao Cardboard,’ an eco-friendly packaging material made from cacao by-products, has been expanded from general Ghana chocolate to other products, with plans to further extend its use to other product categories.

In July last year, Lotte Confectionery declared its ‘Sweet ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) Management’ and announced the ‘Sweet ECO 2025 Project,’ an eco-friendly packaging strategy. The plan aims to reduce plastic usage in product containers by more than 25% by 2025, cut ink and solvent use in packaging printing by over 550 tons, and increase the use of eco-friendly paper packaging to 4,200 tons. To achieve these mid- to long-term goals, Lotte Central Research Institute formed a consortium with the small and medium enterprise Everchemtech under the ‘2022 SME Technology Innovation Development Project,’ participating as a commissioning organization to continue research and product development for plastic reduction.